Put Tarboro on the map

Opinion

January 29, 2010

W. Terry Smith The Daily Southerner Fri Jan 29, 2010, 10:12 AM EST

Cleaning out a reporter's notebook ...

BUDDY Hooks is on the Town of Tarboro's 250th Celebration Committee, and the executive director of the Edgecombe County Cultural Arts Council has an idea.

He has worked tirelessly to obtain permission to use a 1770 map to promote the town and the anniversary. He credits Monika Fleming of Edgecombe Community College with helping him find the map by Capt. John Collet, governor of Fort Johnston.

Hooks contacted Bob Anthony, curator of the North Carolina Collection at the Wilson Library in Chapel Hill.

Hooks sought to obtain an image of the 1770 Collet map and permission to reproduce it. The image would be used for magazine ads, an official poster, on billboards and maybe notecards.

"I understand that this was the first map that showed Tarboro (Tarrburg/Tarborough)," Hooks said.

The Wilson Library sent Hooks the image on a disc. He signed a contract agreeing to use the image only as stated in his request – to promote Tarboro's birthday.

Tarboro is the 11th oldest town in North Carolina: Bath 1705; New Bern 1710; Edenton 1722; Beaufort 1723; Wilmington 1734; Campbellton 1747 (Fayetteville); Windsor 1750; Salisbury 1755; Hillsborough 1759; Halifax 1759; Tarboro 1760; Salem 1766; Charlotte 1768.

“I learned from Monika that there is not a ‘Colonial’ map as such that shows just these towns. But she guided me to the earliest map known that showed the town of Tarboro (spelled “Tarrburg” reflecting the German map maker’s version of the spelling). This is the 1770 John Collet map.

There is a 1760 map is in a deed book at the courthouse, but the photo copies are not clear because of the aging of the original document, Hooks explained.

"I am not really sure if the committee wants to use my idea or not," Hooks said. "At our last meeting there was talk about using the image on a T-shirt and a coffee mug."

Hooks thinks, and I agree, the use of the 1770 map "substantiates, via a visual image, the historic significance of how long ago this town was established.

"Using the cliché, put Tarboro on the map, is just a contemporary way of putting the point across,” he said.

There are plenty of leftover posters promoting the Jan. 18 kickoff event. Why couldn't Hook's idea be printed on the other side and placed in windows around town?

Coffee mugs?

What do you think?

T-shirts?

Why not.

CANDIS OWENS has invited Bryce Lane and Pam Beck to be the featured speakers at the third annual Spring Garden Symposium Thursday, May 6 at Calvary Episcopal Church.

Lane, host of the popular UNC-TV show "In the Garden" was here in 2008. Beck, garden columnist and author, will bring her camera and take photos of the five gardens on the year's walking tour.

MICHAEL BROWN will finish the mural on the south wall of the Colonial Theater next week. All that remains is spraying "varnish" on the bottom section, the seals of each branch of service. The varnish is an acrylic clear coat that seals the painting. It runs $90 a gallon.

Brown began in September, toiled long and hard and still had time for a friendly word for anyone who came by and admired his effort.

The mural was Joe Bourne's idea, and it is outstanding.

MOST WIVES would have their husbands go by the grocery store for bread and milk with a snow storm rumbling this way. Miss Jean told me to go to the ABC Store for bourbon.

Let it snow. I love my wife.

W. Terry Smith is editor of The Daily Southerner.

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